#and Five gets a lot of flack

[big-ball-o-twine]

(original) Ben’s reaction to time travel is so endearing to me. The fact that he was like, wow. That was exhilarating. It’s the closest anyone gets to understanding what Five felt at thirteen, I think.

[front-facing-pokemon]

[formulaforza]

💐 hi my wonderful birthday girl !! so i was thinking about a dress coded lewis blurb (because i was born a lewis and ts girl) where they just get drunk together and there’s teases flying and stuff. keep it as brief as u wish <333

—you can take it off

lewis hamilton x merc!reader summ. thank you stephy i love u bad <3 inspo from... ur never gonna believe it... this. hope it's up to your standards my love. 2.7k (kind of got out of hand)

You were half-asleep and half-drunk the night of the Belgium Grand Prix. The air was cool, recycled like all air seems to be in hotels, smelled of too-strong perfume and was filled with the dull noise of elevator jazz. What had begun as a before-we-go-to-bed night cap in the hotel bar with Bono had turned into a seemingly never ending addition of guests. 

Valtteri was first to join—never could pass up the opportunity to give you shit, to offer you job postings at Alfa Romeo that weren’t job postings at all—and with him around, there’s no casual drinking. You don’t try to keep up, not really, because you know you don’t stand a chance, but also because he would never let you. After all these years of being just a few months younger than him, he still calls you kiddo, still promises to call your parents when you’re out after dark, and always sends you a text after a race with some… questionable strategy decisions you’re catching flack for online. 

A brief appearance from Toto and Susie, just long enough for them to know they had no business trying to go drink for drink with Valtteri, and then they’re wishing all three of you a wonderful summer break and retreating to whatever room is considered prestige enough for Motorsport’s it-couple. 

And then there was Lewis, the last to arrive, who never called you kid, who never viewed you as one. He sits adjacent you in the red, high back leather booth and takes up a seat and a half, the toe of his shoe brushing against the side of yours, flashing you apologetic puppy dog eyes every time he bumps against yours. 

It’s somewhere between drink number five and six that Lewis gets his first, insists on a toast to the summer break that officially began… six hours and fifty-three minutes ago. For a long season this and a too-short summer break that, you lot had a mouthful of things to complain about, but a million more to be grateful for. “To not having work for a month,” Lewis proposes, clinking his glass against yours, offering a quick wink and holding it up properly over the table. 

“To no racing-talk for a few weeks,” Bono adds, clinking his glass against Lewis’. 

“To summer-fucking-break,” Valtteri chimes in, laughing at himself before the rest of you get the chance to match it. 

“To summer fucking break,” you repeat because you know there’s no better way to sum it all up. 

Unlike the other two, you slowed down when Lewis joined, wanted to give him time to catch up, to give yourself time to meet him somewhere in the middle. A glass of water and a virgin rum and coke and another water and the night is still young. 

“First summer break as the big boss, kiddo,” Valtteri remarks, and you have to squint to hear him through the alcohol-induced thickening of his accent. 

“That’s right!” Bono laughs. Your cheeks run hot at their mention of your title, of your promotion following James’ departure earlier in the season. Lewis smiles against the rim of his glass, bumps his foot against yours and doesn’t give you apologetic eyes. No, he raises his brows so slightly you think you’re the only one that notices, which is probably exactly the way he intended it to be. “Little miss queen of strategy is making the big money now, got any big travel plans?”

Lewis clears his throat, and your eyes dart over to his almost instinctively. “You’re staying in London, yeah?”

He’s right. Your summer-break plans consist of four weeks of trying to remember what it feels like to do nothing, failing at that task pathetically, and spending the rest of the time meticulously picking apart every call you’ve made all season and imagining the million and one things you could’ve done differently and their billion and two outcomes. 

You pick apart the drink napkin, tear it into tiny little pieces. “Yeah, yeah. Just staying home, catching up with friends and family,” you clarify, try not to sound as pathetic as you feel. It’s hard not to when you’re sitting next to the guy who spends his offseason snowboarding in Antarctica with his celebrity friends and his weeks off traveling to Paris fashion week for front row seats next to supermodels. Anything you say would sound pathetic to someone who makes thirty-five million a year. 

“I love it,” he nods, stares right through you and into your soul so you know he’s being genuine. “That’s awesome.”

You nod, swallow hard, purposely angle your body away from his, to the rest of the group. “What about you guys?”

Lewis laughs, soft, quiet, completely under his breath. The kind of laugh that deserves to be bottled into a jar and kept on a shelf for safe keeping. You know he’s always laughed like that, even before he knew you, but in the last few months it just feels different. Good different, like he’s laughing just for you now instead of everyone else too. 

You know you’re crazy, that he’s just Lewis being Lewis and you’re just single for the first time in a long time and also drunk. Not half drunk anymore, just drunk—even if you do think you’re meeting him in the middle, you’re not. He’s just chasing after. 

“Back home, too,” Bono concludes. “Take a breather, might head up to the country with the family.”

“You’ll take pictures, yeah?” Lewis asks, starts to pick up the pieces of your napkin tear pile and move them in front of him like a kid who isn’t patient enough to share or destructive enough to rip up his own. You watch in your peripheral, the way he fiddles with the wet paper, gets it stuck to his fingertips. You can’t laugh, so you don’t, but you want to. You think he knows you want to. 

Bono scoffs, nods while swallowing a sip of his drink—something dark, something pungent. Not what you would have pegged him for ordering, even after knowing him as long as you have. “So I can compare with the likes of you lot and,” he turns to Lewis, leers around you to emphasize the eyeline, “your million dollar vacations or,” and then the other way, back to Valtteri, “your olympic cycling events?”

Valtteri smiles, swirls his drink—gin, you think. Expensive. “Yes.”

“No chance.”

“I’ll be sure to send you a picture of me having a meltdown when I think about our side pods from the beginning of the year,” you chime in, because it’s not like they all don’t know you well enough to know exactly what you mean by spending time with friends and family at home.

 “What sidepods?” Lewis chuckles.

“Fucking exactly,” you add, mirror his mannerisms without even realizing it, all the way down to readjusting in your seat when you’ve had your laugh. 

“Could be worse,” Bono offers. “Could be last year.”

Lewis nods, holds his drink up in the direction of Valtteri across the table. “We never should have let you leave.”

He smiles, weak, lips  pursed. “I could have told you that.”

The night continues on, all drinks and laughs and yawns, occasional remarks that it’s about time I head up, followed by another round, another joke, another comment about this, that, or the other thing. 

You’ve always liked Lewis when he’s a little tipsy. He lightens up a bit, you can actually watch the stress drip from him like sweat, all the titles and the wins and the losses, they all just fall away when he’s relaxed like this. You’ve always liked him like this. Always. Before he was king of the world and before he was the prodigal son and every moment in between. 

After every joke he makes—or, after every comment he makes that he thinks could be considered a joke—you find yourself laughing, because it’s Lewis and you have a crush on him and of course you do. And, without fail, everytime you laugh, he winks, like you’re in on some inside joke even though he’s making it to the whole table, like there’s some double meaning to all of his words that are meant just for you, just for the two of you to understand. 

Somewhere in it all, it comes back to Lewis, because, well, it always does. “Is your back still bothering you?” Bono asks, and you think you already know the answer. You think you know, because you can’t remember the last time you;d seen him take careful consideration of his posture when he sits. Not even now is he sitting up straight, with his legs perfectly spread a shoulder’s width apart and his feet flat on the floor. Instead, he’s taking up more room than he needs to, all relaxed and comfortable on the leather booth bench. 

He swipes his thumb over the  condensation of his glass, looking up from the action at you, and then to Bono. “No, no. All good there.”

“All good?” Bono prods, because he was on the receiving end of a year and a half of complaints from Lewis.

Lewis nods, clicks his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “No Paracetamol in a month.”

Across the table, Valterri chimes in. “None?” 

“None for my back,” Lewis says, and the whole table laughs. You just watch him, though, because who laughs better than he does? You could wax poetic about it without a second thought, the way that his lips upturn and his cheeks round and his eyes crinkle and go soft in a way that makes you feel like you’re the funniest person in the world even when you’re not making a joke. The way that his smile is brighter than anyone’s you’ve ever seen, and the way that if you look at it for too long, you think about how it would feel to run your finger along the gap in his teeth. 

“That’s what I thought,” Valtteri mutters off the end of his laugh. “You're getting old.”

“Not too old to make half a million.”

The entire table’s heads fly to him. You gasp, an embarrassingly wide smile on your face. “You didn’t!” You almost yell, smacking his upper arm with a weak hand. 

He mocks your gasp, makes it somehow more dramatic and over the top and laughs sweetly, shrugging your hand off his arm and letting his hand fall to your leg, bumping your foot with his again. “I didn’t.” The table chuckles, you pout, and then you realize that his hand is on your thigh, that it’s staying there quite comfortably, and that you mind it less than he does. 

“Don’t be a tease,” you sigh, take a swig of your drink. Your knees are suddenly weak, like you know you wouldn’t be able to stand up if you wanted to. It’s like he can sense your change but can’t quite read it, because then he’s moving his hand back to his own lap, interlocking it with the other and resting it there.

 He nods, suddenly shy, suddenly guilty. “It’s as good as done.”

Valtteri laughs. “Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.” You hear what he says, but you’re not listening, not really. Lewis stares into you like he wants to look anywhere else—apologetic eyes and a fear he’s taken a misstep. He hasn’t, you want to tell him. You haven’t, put your hand back, please. Silently, you try to convey what shouldn’t dare be spoken. “I’ll believe it when pen is on paper.”

He snaps his eyes away from you, back to Valtteri. You don’t follow suit, stay fixed on him, on trying— hard—to get your message across. “I’m telling you, they’re announcing it after the summer break.”

“Whatever you say, Mate.”

Bono nods around a mouthful of alcohol, sets his half-empty glass down with an incidental thud. “Who’s to say we still want your geriatric ass?”

Lewis raised his interlocked hands from his lap, to the tabletop, resting his elbows on the wood grain and rattling the empty glasses when he does it. He leans in towards the center of the table, even though the only person separating him and Bono is you. “Would you tell Schumacher ‘no?’”

“What was that?” You ask, your words a convenient excuse to lean in closer, to settle into a spot that much closer to him without raising any brows. To brace for the shift, you leave your hand on his thigh with less subtly than your original movement, but it’s okay. It’s okay—only Lewis knows where your hands are, and you don’t want it to be subtle, don’t want anything to be lost in translation. “I can’t hear you over your ego,” you smile, and your fingers dance up his leg just a few, careful inches. 

He drops back into his seat, drops his hands back into his lap. Under the table, he grabs yours and laughs, but it’s stifled, stunted, not quite relaxed. “Very funny,” he humors, and moves your hand back. His stays too, though, and he crosses one leg over the other under the table. His thumb moves over the fabric of your slacks in shudder-worthy circles. 

“Someone’s gotta check you,” you smile, nod in the direction of your tablemates without ever looking away from him. “These two won’t.”

Bono scoffs.“Are you kidding?”

Your smile grows. “How do you want me to answer that, Peter?”

“Damn,” Lewis laughs so hard he coughs. “She Peter-ed you. That’s cold.”

“You’re the one comparing yourself to Michael fucking Schumacher,” Bono scolds. 

“I didn’t say that, but,”

“But!” You interject. 

“But,” Lewis laughs, threatens to continue even though all at the table know he won’t, knows that no matter how often the media and the girlfriends and the friends and the family tell him he should put himself up there with the greatest, he’ll never quite see himself in the same light. “But it’s about time I head up, I think.”

“Ah, see,” Valtteri chuckles. “Old man Hamilton can’t hang.”

“No, he can not,” Lewis remarks, pulling his phone and his hotel keycard from his pocket, setting the latter on the table and if you were feeling a little crazier than you are, you’d swear he nudges it ever so slightly out of his bubble and into yours. He types away rapidly at his phone, and you try to pay attention to the jokes Bono and Valtteri throw around, the pokes at Lewis they make, but suddenly you’re feeling like it’s a good time to head up, too. You try to shake the crazy, to leave it with your backwash in the final sip of your drink, and you do. You do.

You do, but then he’s slipping his phone back into his pocket. He’s leaving his glass just beyond his keycard and telling you to feel free to finish it. He’s saying his goodbyes while he moves out of the booth and his hotel room key is still sat on the table next to you. It stares at you—the hard, thin plastic. Stares at you in its white paper pocket with the intricate printing of the hotel label and dares you to look at him when he walks away. 

You do, begrudgingly, subtly, and his eyes are already on yours. They’re expressionless, and yet, say so fucking much. You hold the remainder of his drink in his direction before downing it in a single gulp and then he winks at you. He looks at his keycard on the table, and then to you, and then he winks, and you’re sure you’re absolutely crazy. 

You swallow. 

“Oh, fuck,” Bono says, reaches over you to grab the keycard from the table. It’s like you were zoned out and he snapped in front of your face, the way it pulls you from Lewis to the table. “He forgot his key.”

“Oh,” you squeak, and then louder, “I can take it to him.”

“No, no, It’s okay,” Bono says, and he makes you stand up to get out of the booth. “I should be heading up anyway.”

“Really,” you half-insist, trying to convince him you can handle it without letting him in on why you’re convincing him. “It’s no problem.”

Bono pulls out his wallet, flips through the pockets of it and fiddles with his bills. “Our rooms are right by each other,” he insists, tosses his share onto the table. “I got it.”

“Okay,” you nod, accept your defeat. “Yeah, I should be heading up, too, I guess.”

[positivelyruined]

An Interview with Tamlin

If our beloved Tam could speak for himself in our times. As told by positivelyruined for @tamlinweek 2024

Question One — How does the flack from the entire fandom and the world at large genuinely make you feel?

Tamlin sighed and rubbed his temples, “Well, it isn’t pleasant. There are things I’ve read that do give me the urge to track down certain people and transform them into cockroaches; but I think if I were to summarize it, it would be something like, ‘characters are people too.’ Despite our controversies, we do all have feelings. I think that deserves a modicum of respect, don’t you?”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Two — What are your thoughts on SJM and the way she’s written your story?

Tamlin bites his lip and scratches his neck, shuddering to himself. “Here’s the thing…Sarah and I — we used to be friends. Once, long ago; I can’t say that now. In Pyrthian this sort of thing would be handled with a duel over my honor; but perhaps in your world it’s more familiar as…death of the author? I think I heard that phrase somewhere. She and I are no longer on speaking terms. I would truly consider her dead to me.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Three — Considering you have described your author as dead to you, would you now call yourself a free man?

Tamlin laughed wryly. “Quite honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever live down the damage that was done to my character. There are people out for blood. I’d honestly say it was one of my worst fears to have someone else shapeshift into me and commit crimes. Now, I’m living in that reality. I feel glad that there isn’t a fictional character incarceration program, because otherwise I’d certainly be living there. No — I am definitely not a free man, and I will be content to live the rest of my life as a hermit.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Four — What can a person do to attract your attention?

He snickered. “By the cauldron, they could start by using my name correctly or generally not referring to me as a feminine hygiene product. Your lordship, or your highness is always appreciated…but for now, I would honestly settle for people just getting my name right.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Five — People are saying Feyre never loved you and you never loved her. Do you have a response to that?

“I think it says a lot to be willing to sacrifice your life, for someone, doesn’t it?” He softened. “I always believed Feyre was my mate, but I still offered her the opportunity to go — to be safe. She came back for me. Right now…I would do anything to have her here with me; but there are times even giving your all just isn’t enough. All I can do is pray that she is happy. Thorns and all.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Six — Do you have any fears that you would consider irrational?

Tamlin nods grimly. “Yeesh — caves, attics, any other place inhabited by flying rodents. Whoever decided that rats deserve wings needs a serious reality check.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Seven — Have you ever been confused with another celebrity?

The High Lord shrugs. “People say I look like several people like Toby Regobo, Luke Eyesner, Legolass — although I’d like to think myself fairly unique. Pretty much, I’m the tall blonde one with an unpredictable face. It is a nice way to remain anonymous.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Eight — Growing up, what were your favorite childhood games?

“Hide and seek, obviously.” He answers. “With enough practice, I learned how to shapeshift into objects. I was gone for nine hours once. People didn’t notice until they ran into a stepstool that complained about being kicked. It still felt like I won that game — although my brothers would have said otherwise.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Nine — What do you look forward to in the future? What do you dread?

“Ah. Peace and quiet. The next Autumn festival. Fresh blueberries, and perhaps a nice nap in the sun.” Tamlin smiled, slowly. “What do I dread? Ever having to do this again, and the asparagus that Alis always cooks on Friday.”

───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─────

Question Ten — If you could tell your audience anything, what would that be?

“If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say it at all.” He said, then paused to reconsider. “Also, pay attention to what you read. It is all too easy to let another's thoughts become your own. You have a brain. Use it.”

[yall-hate-kids-tourney]

Who has been screwed over by the fandom more?

Propaganda below the cut

Gregory:

So Gregory's story isn't fully filled out yet (because this is FNaF, why would it be?) But the story we're getting involves him being mind controlled and forced to be a killer, only to be set free somehow and losing his memories of what happened. So he's a preteen who's been hypnotized but somehow the crimes are his fault even though a major theme is the battle for control and a plot point is that he can't remember what he did.

The thing that makes me so mad is that at the end of the Ruin DLC, Gregory's voice comes in from the speakers of the elevator you're on and tells you "We can't risk being followed" before the elevator drops. This would look really bad if not for the fact you were just getting chased by a robot that has been using Gregory's voice to lure you down there the whole time. People are blaming Gregory for 'killing his best friend' when there's a much higher chance it was the Mimic who dropped the elevator.

Mabel Pines:

girl gets so much flack for being... immature and kind of selfish at age 12? like she had whole video essays made on why she is a horrible person who deserves punishment. god forbid girls be silly

----

i've never watched this show in my life but dear sweet fat of the hog. y'all treat her horribly. free my girl she did nothing wrong except exist as a preteen girl.

----

!!! Spoilers for Gravity Falls last 5 episodes !!!

This has gone down a lot but when the Weirdmaggedon arc was happening, the finale of the series, a big part of the fandom started hating Mabel because she accidentally caused the Weirdmaggedon (basically an apocalypse + bizarre shit like the water tower becoming an eight-legged monster with a giant mouth).

For context, in the episode that starts this arc, "Dipper and Mabel vs The Future", Mabel is really excited to the end of their summer vacation at Grunkle Stan's house, since it will be her and Dipper's 13th birthday and they will enter high school (her idea of high school of course coming from teen movies). But then this whole idea starts to shatter when Wendy tells her that high school isn't like a Disney musical, but it's okay, she will get through this since she will be with Dipper, her twin brother...

Except, that Dipper receives an invitation by Grunkle Stan's scientist brother Ford to become his apprentice after summer ends, staying in Gravity Falls, without Mabel. When she discovers it, she gets really mad at him and in a fit of rage, she accidentally picks Dipper's bag instead of hers and runs off to the woods.

When she gets there, Blendin, a time-travelling friend of theirs finds her and tells her that he has a way of making her brother stay with her, and make the summer take a little more to end, and that he just needed a little thing that Dipper has in his bag. That thing is a dimensional rift that Dipper and Ford contained to not cause the Weirdmaggedon, but Mabel didn't knew about that and gives it to Blendin. Blendin then breaks it and it's revealed that Bill Cipher was controlling Blendin to get the rift and release the Weirdmaggedon. He then traps Mabel in a bubble, starting the final arc of the series.

So, a few episodes later, that bubble she's in is revealed to be a world of fantasy that she controls, and that she didn't want to leave that world, as she was scared of growing up etc.

Context given, A LOT OF PEOPLE HATED HER FOR THIS. Suddenly people started seeing Mabel as just a selfish girl who wanted things only her way, when she was only a 12-year-old scared of growing up without her twin brother (they do end up going back together at the end but still).

The worst part is that apparently the people behind it took note of this, and on the comics that where released after the finale, she is a selfish spoiled brat. I haven't read the comics though so I'm going off what some people said about it.

[dispatchvampire]

Accidentally In Love (Chapter 1)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes x FemaleOC

Warnings: Potentially lethal levels of fluffiness right now, potential for smut later. A little blood, canon levels of violence potentially. Plus size female OC, body descriptions.

Rating: PG-13 (right now for language, but look for this to change)

WC: 2200-ish.

Summary: 

Echo's living a normal life in NYC, a 911 dispatcher, the most excitement she gets is from the calls she takes. And then love comes crashing in one day when she's riding her bike through Central Park.

Steve and Bucky weren't looking for anything on their daily run around the park besides fresh air and exercise. The streak of purple eye candy on a bike that lapped them pretty regularly was a nice addition but not mandatory, at least until some impromptu roughhousing results in some civilian casualties in the form of the most beautiful woman either of them had seen in a long, long time.

A/N: AU, Post CACW, Bucky’s Chill and we have always lived in the Tower. Just call this a throwback to the found family, everyone lives in Stark Tower fics.

This is supposed to be a super-fluffy love story. Still undecided if I'm gonna keep this one going but posting now for giggles and grins. It's got some CSI:NY characters crossing over because why not.

I'm just messing about and playing in my WIPs folder. Not Beta'd: we die like men! (honestly, I tried but if you catch something I missed, let me know)

Chapter 1

Five miles at a time. Everything in the early morning hours was measured five miles at a time for Echo Nerys and her trusty mountain bike. From 6:30 to 8AM give or take, she was a glittery purple streak on a circuit through Central Park from end to end that she’d measured precisely both for distance and scenic value. The moment she left her job at NYPD Central Dispatch at 6AM, she was changed and on the bike, ready to go. She even had an appropriately timed playlist on Spotify. 

She’d started as early in the spring as the weather allowed for, in her long compression pants and jacket, getting her face chapped as she and her body remembered what it felt like to be on two wheels and free. A figure in all black in the early hours of the morning fast enough to pedal past the majority of the criminal element and yet still taking hits off her asthma bong when she paused to get drinks from her backpack. 

Now, though, with the summer slowly stretching out down the coast, she’d tied up her puff pigtails and ditched her all black for the wildly purple tie-dyed bike shorts, sports bra, and tank top, all matching, because why not and her favorite pair of sunglasses that made her look like a trained killer. Even her earbuds were purple. There were some who said she didn’t really have the body for the tightly clinging gear, but fuck those people, she was going to be comfortable and safe while she worked out and they didn’t have to look if it offended them. Her body, not-toned stomach, thick thighs and semi-floppy arms, was her own and had been through many of its own wars, and she could wear what made her happy. 

She’d picked up riding the previous summer and had taken it inside for the duration of the winter, riding in the basement gym of 1PP, but she didn’t have a whole lot to show for it physically other than shaplier calves and slightly thinner thighs. She wasn’t in it for the way she looked, but how good it felt to finally move after being sick and stuck with her joint pain for so long. Now that her meds were mostly managed, she was hell on two wheels, six days a week if she could manage, five if she wanted to go easy on it, and it felt amazing.  

On her pace, she saw herself coming up on a group of joggers just cresting the hill, the tallest among them, a hottie from the Homicide Squad, Donnie Flack. All black-haired, blue-eyed Irish, he was every dispatcher’s crush and untouchable as a museum piece because of his wife in the Coroner’s Office. No one wanted to test a forensic scientist’s ability to exact revenge. It was just poor planning. And he was such a sweetheart, it was impossible not to be his friend. 

“On ya left!” she hollered out as she approached the group, powering up the hill despite the way her knees screamed and her thighs burned. It was the principle of the thing, really, as she stood on her pedals and waved as she sailed past them with a jaunty grin. Now that she’d caught up to them, she saw it was a couple other guys from Homicide and one of the guys from down in Trace Evidence. 

“Lookin’ good, E!” Danny Messer, Flack’s whip-thin, mouthy bestie from Crime Scene Investigations, hollered back with a huge grin and a wave as Donnie stuck his fingers in his mouth and wolf-whistled. Messer was good people, and his wife was a doll. Echo lived in their building a couple floors down and had babysat their kids more than a couple times. 

Once she was out of sight, she concentrated on her speed according to the handlebar speedometer and focused on her Beastie Boys as she took the path around the edge of the Jackie O Reservoir. It was so beautiful, with duck families out in force, moms with their collections of babies trailing behind. The water made the air feel a bit cooler as the wind rushed over her skin as she progressed toward the Butterfly Garden. 

Next up on her list of gorgeous sights was the two guys in front of her that she’d dubbed Hotness 1 and Hotness 2. She passed them a few times on her rides, most mornings. Hotness 1 was tall like Donnie, but broader, with muscles upon muscles. He looked like an escapee from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, if Galatea had been 6’3” and blonde with cornflower blue eyes and an ass that would have reduced Michaelangelo to abject weeping. 

Hotness 2 wasn’t any easier on the libido, with his blue-grey peepers and long dark hair he kept in a bun at his neck to go with his panty-melting smile and muscles. His bangs broke free of their confinement framing his face as they drifted over his model-perfect cheekbones and brushed against his sharp jawline. Not that she’d been ogling. Much. 

Alone, they were the kind of flawless that caused traffic jams. Both of them together was an obscenity charge waiting to happen in their running shorts and sinfully well-fitting t-shirts, and more than one jogger—both male and female—had pulled up lame, run into a tree, or tripped over their own feet watching them go by.  

“On ya left!” she called as she approached them, smiling as they waved when she flew by. If she happened to be standing on the pedals and sticking her ass out a bit more than was strictly necessary, well, could anyone blame her? Really? Besides, their smiles and waves of acknowledgement were totally worth it.  

Just past The Loch was the Glen Span Arch, which always felt like a fairy garden to Echo. A stone bridge over the asphalt path with the stream running next to it and abundant trees, it was easy to imagine falling into a rabbit hole like Alice diving into Wonderland and never coming back. With the sun dappling through the leaves, it was here she felt like she was the only person in the world and life was perfect. 

At least it was, until a grizzly bear in a blue shirt and black shorts descended into her path from down the hill. Echo hit the brakes so hard the back tire came up off the path and ditched out on the bike to keep from hitting him. She went one way and flung the bike the other, doing her best to guard her face and head from what would likely be a hard hit.

“Fuckshit!” 

It was over in a second, she was in the creek, soaked to the bone on some very hard and unforgiving rocks that were currently poking into her ribs and hip, with no idea where her bike was. Or her sunglasses. Or phone. Taking inventory from toes upward, she was happy to report that for the most part, she’d likely sustained bruises but otherwise, she’d live. At least, until she tried to push herself up and her hand slipped on the wet rocks, sending her face first into the flowing water. 

“Ah Christ! Hold on!” a deep, unfamiliar male voice hissed as he hooked his hands under her arms and bodily lifted her from the stream. Literally picked her up like a discarded toy, and like she weighed just as little, cradling her to his surprisingly firm and muscular chest. “I got you, sweetheart.” If she wasn’t so busy reeling from the hit and sputtering from the water coming out of her sinuses, his warm, rumbling voice as he brushed his lips over her temple would have definitely done the job. “I gotchu, darlin’. Are you okay?”

“I think so?” Echo took a second to compose herself after he set her on her feet with his arm protectively around her waist, scrubbing a hand down her face to deal with the water and unfortunately blood coming from sore spots on the bridge of her nose and her chin. When she looked up from her bloody hand, she wondered exactly how hard she’d been hit in the head, because in front of her was the concerned face of the most beautiful man she’d ever seen, looking her over like she was the most delicate bone china and he’d just yeeted it off the dining room table. He cupped her jaw in his hand, thumb gently brushing over her cheekbone, it was familiar and more than a little terrifying. Who the hell was this guy and why the hell was he touching her? 

At her tiny, horrified squeak, his blue eyes widened, looking over his shoulder at his friend, Hotness 2, who had a cell phone pressed to his ear. “This is your fault, ya jerk. You plannin’ on helpin’ or what?” 

The grey-eyed Adonis with the long dark hair held up a strangely metal-looking finger and spoke tersely into the phone before hanging up and coming over to them with a disgruntled look on his face for his friend. “Medics inbound. Settle down, Stevie.” The moment those steel-blue eyes turned on her, though, it could have been the sole cause of global warming because damn, if she didn’t melt a little on the spot from their tenderness. “I am so sorry, dollface. I didn’t see you. Are you okay?” 

When he reached for her face to examine her bloody chin, she recoiled out of reflex, not fear, but unfortunately that was the moment that everything went to shit for the second time in ten minutes. 

“NYPD! Step away from her!” Flack had his gun out and his badge around his neck, with Danny doing the same as he cautiously approached her with the rest of the heavily armed, sweaty contingent. Apparently Tall, Dark, and Yummy wasn’t moving fast enough because then Donnie barked, “Now, asshole! Move away from her or I’ll shoot.” 

Both hands up and out to the side, 2 stepped back, eyes never leaving the gun trained on him. “You don’t wanna do this, pal.” He seemed amusingly calm, which made about as much sense to her as any of the rest of this, which was none at all. Blondie slowly straightened up further but kept an arm around her waist to hold her up.

The very fact that the man spoke seemed to incense her friend further. “You think I give a fuck about your opinion?” 

“Hey, that’s not necessary…” The man standing with her gave her a reassuring squeeze before stepping over to stand with his friend. 

With them occupied, Danny crept up next to her and moved her off to the side, surrounded by the rest of the guys from Homicide and Evidence. “She’s secure, Flack.” 

“Good.” The detective nodded before turning his attention back to his quarry. “Now what the fuck were you doing feeling up an injured woman? You get off on that?”

Hotness 1 was all calmly defiant righteousness, standing shoulder to shoulder with his buddy. “We called a medic for her, they should be here in a couple minutes. We weren’t looking and didn’t see her on the path until it was too late.” 

“This true, Echo?” Danny asked softly as he gently seated her on a nearby boulder and seemed to be checking her over for more injuries than just her face and her pride.

She went to nod but that rattled her head too much. “Yeah, Messer. I guess. It was just a regular crash. My fault as much as theirs, really. No real harm done.” 

Frowning ferociously, Flack clearly was not content with her answer. “IDs, I want ‘em. Now.” 

Blondie nodded slowly, alarmingly unperturbed about having a .40 caliber pistol pointed at his face. “Front right pocket. You wanna get it or should I?”

“Don’t get us shot, Stevie,” the longhaired man admonished his friend. From his long-suffering expression, this was apparently not the first time this type of thing had happened to either of them. 

Rolling his eyes, Flack held out his hand. “Alright, smartass, wallets now.”

While the Homicide Hottie (as they called him in Dispatch) held court with her two new acquaintances, the ambulance rolled up and the medics  began cleaning her wounds and checking her over as her worried neighbor stood guard over her. The last thing she wanted or needed was stitches and additional facial scars, but it looked like she might not get a choice in the matter. 

“Messer! Get over here!” The note of concern in the detective’s voice had her looking over immediately, only to find all the guns put away and all their postures seemed substantially less aggressive, though no less agitated. 

“Ma’am, could you hold still please?” The female medic with the gentle hands turned her face so she could clean the wounds better. 

She didn’t know if it was the movement or what, but all of a sudden, she was going down, hard. The last thing she remembered was the ground rushing up to meet her. Again.

[foxyanon]

👋 the reason I'm so upset is that a mutual sent me a screenshot of @lya-dustin @valeskafics @ewanmitchellcrumbs and others including you dissing somebody that is an Uthred cosplayer and saying they're a creep for choosing that character. This reflects really badly on Alex as he gets a lot of flack already on RL from people who slag him off for having long hair and quoting 'destiny is all' at him every five minutes in a high pitched voice. Uthred is not Alex even as Alex is Uthred.

Ewan is a very private person OK - but his sexuality is obvious to see, he personally feels he owes it to nobody to discuss it or claim publicly when it's already out there. He feels it's best to let people draw their own conclusions. He doesn't like personal photographs being shared online like the rest of the cast do so this has to be respected. But when Alex was filming TLK, Ewan spent a lot of time with the cast and our family on occasion. He came to my wedding 😊 and he was on these hikes too! 🤭🤫 He's an awesome guy and we are all so proud of his work on HoTD

But y'all just seem to treat Alex and his colleagues as pieces of meat. I get this is a private online space but as I got a pedicure in Primrose I was browsing your blogs and seen that image disrespecting Arnas and his genitals. Like this is clearly photoshopped for sick kicks. I'm pretty sure if someone did this to Millie there would be a huge outcry but because it's Arnas our fave himbo then it's okay. Arnas is such a lovely man and hugely underrated so he doesn't deserve this molestation

I’m going to say this one last time, then we are putting this to rest.

1. I never dissed the cosplayer. I never dissed Alex. I gave my opinion on a FICTIONAL CHARACTER. If you have seen the screenshots, you would know I was talking about the CHARACTER and not the ACTOR. I think Alex is a great actor and he did his job well. He properly played a CHARACTER who was not likable 100% of the time, which is a testament to his skill as an ACTOR.

2. MY PAGE IS NOT THE PLACE TO DISCUSS THE PERSONAL LIVES OF THESE ACTORS! I don’t care that you think you’re Alex’s cousin and friends with Ewan, I will tolerate absolutely ZERO comment on any actors personal life. Full offense, if you were actually his friend, you’d know he values his privacy and you wouldn’t be making comments on it.

3. Yes, I make thirsty ass comments about pretty people. Scroll through my page, you’ll see me making a comment about how Gwendolyn Christie is a literal goddess and I want her to step on me. At no point did I disrespect any of them, I just made a thirsty ass comment and let it lie. I’ve personally never met Arnas, but those that have said he’s a lovely person and I believe it.

You coming out the side of your neck at me, telling me to eat shit over my opinion of a fictional character because YOU can’t separate the actor from the role is not my problem. This is a conversation that should’ve happened in private, but you chose to insult me and others instead.

Have the day you deserve, Anon.

[11x13kyle]

i'm behind on microceleb lore so sorry if this has been asked but what's the WORST thing that everybody in this au has done in their Celeb Era?

cartman: honestly the hardest to even know where to START because it’s cartman. he’s done every bad thing in the world. if i had to pick, i’d probably say the unhinged levels of racism and antisemitism! he’s got a bucket list of evil shit to do and tries to check at least one item off a week.

kyle: crucially, the worst things that kyle does are more passively bad. it’s less that he actively does bad shit (besides occasionally dogpiling on 15 year olds on twitter) and more that he allows it to happen by virtue of being part of fireside. he isn’t touting right wing talking points, but he platforms people who do, which also isn’t exactly great!

kenny: he has slept with people while having full knowledge of them having a history of like. violence, predatory behavior, insane fringe dangerous beliefs, etc. and straight up does not care at all about it. he also sold fent-laced weed to 13 year olds when he was like 18-19 years old.

stan: also kind of passive shittiness, kind of like kyle’s, because of the way he claims to support all of these left wing causes and advocates for them for all of five minutes before dropping them entirely out of boredom and/or lack of attention, and that he does all of this while being close w/ people like cartman (who he has also never publicly criticized). and there was also that lady he ran over in malibu in a hit and run a while back.

butters: active selling and trading of nfts. saying horrifically misogynistic shit all the time and publicly shaming women for existing. has had andrew tate on his show and is constantly calling for him to be freed from jail.

clyde: he’s a landlord. and he’s straight. and just generally he’s a douche so i’m sure he was involved in some fucked up lord of the flies esque hazing ritual in his frat in college.

tolkien: repeated instances of poorfishing that he refuses to acknowledge as wrong because he truly does not see anything wrong with it. also he calls his girlfriend his partner in a way that intentionally makes himself seem ambiguously queer.

jimmy: one time while on a mind numbing amount of steroids he beat the shit out of some random dude at a bar. there wasn’t even a motive it was purely out of a love for the game.

wendy: just so many White Feminist takes. wrote an article for vice once about white women existing as their own oppressed class and got a shit ton of flack. she doesn’t actually apologize, just says “sorry if you didn’t understand the phrasing” and doesn’t change anything in the article. she also gets a lot of shit for making a bunch of posts around the time of the 2020 election that suggest that if you vote bernie over warren in the primaries that you are a fake leftist and hate women.

craig: he does a lot of ads for things that he doesn’t use and doesn’t check before hand so he’ll promote things that are actively harmful and/or run by awful people and even after finding out about it he doesn’t do anything or even stop the ads because he truly does not care as long as they run him his check. also every time someone calls him out for some shit like racism or misogyny he’s like. irdgaf. he never apologizes for anything.

tweek: he’s a very paranoid person so he has a bunch of these weird, often tinfoil-hatty beliefs that make him seem unhinged at best and actively spreading harmful messages at worst. tweek hears anything that’s like “this secret thing is trying to kill you and the government doesn’t want you to know.” and he’s like GHHHHHGGHH AGGHJHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! GUYS YOU HAVE TK HEAR THIS SHIT OHHH MY GODDDDDDDDDD!!!!!! (what he proceeds to say has no factual basis but he’s talking as if it’s proven fact)

[zuble]

maybe i’ll get flack for this but i do think autism is genetic. i have a VERY large family. it’s full of catholics who love to have babies. a lot of us are autistic. like there is a much higher percentage of us who are officially diagnosed with autism compared to the general population. there are three of us in my immediate family with it. one of my aunts has fifteen kids. FIVE of them are autistic. that’s a third of their children. another aunt has two kids. they’re both autistic.

[teaveetamer]

Considering Bernedetta is still up there while Alcryst isn't the top 5 of Engage characters but Diamant is, you can infer Bernie fans and Alcryst fans aren't merging. Ironically Leo and Takumi being in the top 20 could mean you're correct and fans of Takumi and Leo intersect with Alcryst thus he's not getting as many votes because Leo and Takumi are getting them. Look as a Fates fan I really don't get the Bernie love because Fates is a bunch of anime tropes but she's fine just rubs me the wrong way, but she has a hardcore base I suppose

Leo and Takumi have always maintained a top 20 position/top 5-10ish Fates characters so I can't say conclusively if there's any sort of real vote siphon going on. If anything, Alcryst is probably siphoning their votes because people probably figure he has the best shot to win this year.

Also keep in mind, the top 5 is not divided by gender. There are three women taking up three of the spots (Ivy, Yunaka, and F!Alear) so for all we know Alcryst could be the #3 Engage male character behind M!Alear and Diamant. The top five rankings are neat but I wouldn't take them too seriously.

But yeah I'll be completely honest: everyone who was predicting Alcryst would siphon votes from Bernie clearly do not understand the demographics of FEH/the primary target demographic of Bernadetta. And I don't mean this to be demeaning, but Bernie-as-a-character is written in a way that indulges in a fantasy primarily held by straight men. She's the "broken girl who only trusts you and needs you to protect her". That's why her Byleth supports go all in on "omg I'm usually such a mess but I feel safe with basically zero effort around you professor because you're special!" Alcryst, I would guess, was not written with that demographic in mind. He definitely has his appeals to his specific demographics, but I highly doubt there's a lot of overlap between who he was designed to appeal to and who Bernie was designed to appeal to.

Even if they were a 1:1 comparison just with the gender flipped, that doesn't mean they're going to appeal to the same people. The way they're perceived is going to be affected by their genders. For example, a lot of straight men probably find Alcryst whiny or feel like he needs to "man up". If we went back in time about 10-15 years I'm sure they'd even have some choice slurs for gay men to call him. That's no doubt because in our society we view men who are shy, overly apologetic, jumpy, lacking confidence or self-esteem, etc. as weak and shameful. Whereas with women, lacking confidence and self-esteem is not only expected but often desirable. So you can wind up with two characters who are exactly the same but one will be perceived differently based on gender norms and socialization.

Something similar happened with Corrin back in the day. While both Corrins got flack, M!Corrin, particularly M!Corrin in Conquest, got hit particularly hard with criticism complaining about how he was whiny, he was weak, he was stupid, he was overdramatic, etc. while F!Corrin (who Conquest was likely natively written around) slid under the radar more.

Honestly you could do a whole essay on Conquest v. Birthright, the way they were written/localized with a particular Corrin in mind, and what that says about how society treats gender (particularly how F!BR!Corrin doesn't get shit for taking on more """masc""" traits of being headstrong and violent, but M!CQ!Corrin gets shit for taking on the more """femme""" traits of CQ, such as making an "emotional" decision to side with Nohr, being all about pacifism and cooperation, and openly expressing strong emotions of sadness and regret). But idk if I wanna be the one to write it.

[sillylizardguys]

Alright, my topic for today is

BUNGO STRAY DOGS USES RANDOM PLOT DEVICES IN A WAY THAT DOESN’T MAKE THEM FEEL LAZY AND I GENUINELY THINK IM GOING INSANE OVER THIS

normally when a show pulls a new plot device out of it’s ass I think “oh my god (derogatory)” BUT WHEN BSD DOES IT IT’S MORE “Oh my God! (Awe and excitement)” BECAUSE IT SOMEHOW DOES IT WELL???

———————————————————

EXAMPLES INCLUDE

- The Moby Dick (Tbh a giant flying whale in the sky isn’t too obscure in this world)

- The Sky Casino (Okay this one my first thought was “THE WHAT?? THAT EXSISTS???” But that’s the point! It’s so obscure but with later context it just fits!!)

- Ranpo just coming in at the start of season five and saving the ADA from certain doom (It’s Ranpo! It’s just what he does!)

- SOMEHOW INTRODUCING VAMPIRES FOUR EPISODES INTO SEASON FIVE AND GETTING THE VIEWER HOOKED ON THE CONCEPT IN LESS THAN AN EPISODE (SURE FUCK IT I’LL BITE, WELL ACTUALLY THEY DO BUT YAKNOW)

- The entire character of Tachihara Michizou, a supporting cast member who we’ve known since season one getting a whole arc with twists and turns out of nowhere (Here’s hoping the next seasons will reunite the The Black Lizard!)

- Fukuchi’s Dumb Overpowered Space and Time Sword™️ (I know I’m giving it some flack here, but as far as plot devices go, I actually really like it! Maybe I’ll make a post about that sometime!)

———————————————————

So many of these things would not work in any other show, but it’s clear BSD puts a lot of thought into what it does, which is the best thing you can do. It’s a story that weaves so many complicated concepts together in a way that’s compelling. I’m so happy I gave this series a shot, because it instantly became a favorite of mine.

[percyjackson81893]

Ay Larries, back at it again with something to make you hurt.

I was just thinking last night about how as a little kid, I was a Harry AND Louis girl. As in I love both of them. I love Louis’s songs and how something in his voice heals my broken heart. I love how you can hear the emotion in Harry’s voice and just are able to tell that his songs are about his life because you can hear the “it’s gonna be ok,” and “you did this and this is why it SUCKS.”

Well I remember being a little girl and it hurting how underrated Louis was and still is. And I remembered Louis’s interview about how Harry just immediately was successful as a solo artist because he’s Harry Styles, and how he was honest about how it bothered him a bit.

Do you think he was honest with Harry about how he got a lot of the attention during 1D, and still does? Do you think he blames Simon?

I do, and even if he wasn’t, I think Harry knew. From the way he would close his eyes and listen during his solos, to the way he shushes the crowd during If I Could Fly as a solo artist.

Simon pushed those boys beyond their limits, all of them. From waking Zayn up after he slept for 10 MINUTES, to sexualizing 16 year old Harry and paring him at 17 with a 38 year old Carolyn Flack. To not letting Niall get goddamn knee surgery that he needed after being hit by a projectile at a concert. To making a kind Louis out to be a d!ck. Is Louis chaos in human form? Yes but when he “bullies” you, you know it’s out of affection because he’s THAT friend. He even locked them in their hotel rooms. It was concert to Hotel Room to concert again. And don’t even get me started on five albums and four world tours in five years.

Now by no means am I saying Louis doesn’t love Harry, his success, or that he isn’t proud of him. I’m merely wondering because it seems like a complicated situation, to be insecure about how little attention you get when all you’ve dreamed about is being an artist but being in love with the person who’s getting the attention when they weren’t ready.

[janedoewrites]

Did you self-publish? If yes, what was it like? Any advise for writers looking to publish?

I did self-publish, yes.

How I Did It

It was easier than I thought it'd be, at least, the way I approached it. Caveat that I went through KDP (i.e. Amazon) for a number of reasons that basically came down to a) ease of publishing b) availability of hard copies c) the shipping of hard copies on a global scale (not all countries are available but it's a decent amount) d) it's a place people often go to for books period e) the cost of publishing (the way it works is that print is done "on-demand" it's slower but I don't have to pay out of pocket for X print copies that I then have to sell to make the money back). f) fairly good royalties g) the general terms and conditions and 'ownership' of my material.

There are downsides in that it's through Amazon, whom nobody likes, and that there's return shenanigans in that if I get money from a purchase and if someone chooses to then return the book then that money gets taken away from me personally. (This has gotten better, recently, with ebook purchases as now if a reader reads past a certain percentage they're considered as having 'bought' it where before a lot of people treated it like a library and didn't realize it was the author they were fucking over and not Amazon who makes sure they're not the ones taking the cut).

And look, to those who want to give me flack, we live in a society and people buy books on Amazon. Them's the breaks.

There are other ways to self-publish and platforms you can pay to be a part of where they'll work to not only get you listed on Amazon but bookstores such as Barnes and Noble but it's a little more complicated/does cost some amount to do.

What Was it Like

It's a fairly simple process through KDP at least. What you do is set up an account with tax information/agree to terms of service/so on and so forth. You can then manage your books through a profile and the manuscripts you can write in pre-provided document templates that have the print structure for whatever size book you want to write (e.g. 6"x9").

When you're finished and have your page count in the formatted text, you go and see what size covers are required for hard copies (if you're interested) and can either use stock images to generate covers or else cover images that you own (e.g. you do it yourself or commission it as a book cover by an artist). For e-books they give specifications on the quality your cover should be for the best resolution/results.

You then submit your manuscript/cover art for copyright review, get an ISBN (KDP provides this for free for hard copies if you use them), and decide on digital rights management, promotion options, and pricing structure (where you're told up front the cost of printing/the amount you get after KDP's cut of the royalties).

It sits in reviews for up to 72 hours and provided all goes well you're then live, you get an author page and links to your works, and you can distribute how you want/tell the world to buy your book.

In other words, it was stupid easy.

Should You Self-Publish

There are pros and cons to self-publishing vs. publishing in general.

One great pro is nobody tells you what to do and so long as you follow terms of service (which hopefully you do as it's things like: don't write about the glorification of violence, glorification of sexual violence, so on and so forth) you can publish what you like without having to necessarily be 'marketable'.

Remember that published books are intended to sell and they generally either target extremely niche markets in a very deep way or else try to cast a very wide net with a book everyone can enjoy. One thing you'll see a lot of if you go the publishing route is "I as an agent enjoy unique stories. Now, tell me at least five books that are exactly like yours that were published in the last five years." There are exceptions, but it's generally not a field that likes risk or shaking the boat. They want to be able to sell books.

Another great pro is you're depending only on yourself. You can publish the book as soon as you're finished editing without having to convince someone else it's great stuff.

And of course, there's the pro that you don't have to get an agent or publisher to say yes. The way it typically works is if you want the big or prestigious publishers, you have to have an agent and that agent usually has to have some in roads with that publisher. Which means you have to submit a few pages of a manuscript/a summary and other things to them and hope they get back to you on that. This can be very time consuming (as they generally allow a window of 4-6 weeks) and annoying.

The cons is that you have to market yourself and you don't have the leg up that publishing would otherwise get you (where you are associated with whatever books they already have published just by being published by them, they may or may not run marketing campaigns and advertising for your material, and they can get your books distributed on a much wider scale). What this means is that if you don't have a large-ish platform already and care about sales/intend to make a living on this then you're going to have a very rough time getting a foot up.

The other part of this is that obviously you don't get a forward/amount of money before any books are sold as you otherwise might with a publishing agency. You only get the royalties you earn through sales.

Any Advice?

The self-publishing bit is easy enough that the hardest part is the writing and the editing. Obviously, I haven't gotten far in at this point, and I'm also not all that concerned about sales (I have no intentions of quitting my day job and becoming an auteur any time soon) so I'm perhaps not the person to ask at this point in time.

If you go Amazon worth thinking about is if you want to go the Kindle Unlimited route or not. I haven't as of yet, because I'm not feeling the burn for promotion.

What it is for those not familiar is that Amazon will market your book much more internally (e.g. that stuff that pops up on your kindle when you turn it on), run sales and promotions on it, but your ebook version can be read for free/lent to others for free with you getting a small amount of money depending how far readers make it into the book. The idea being that as you reach a much larger audience, you get more money than you otherwise would have. It's a good way to market if you have no platform/following already and a good way to proliferate the book but you lose out on people actually buying it.

[filmmarvel]

Ranking the Umbrella Academy Members in Season 3

Ranked on enjoyability! This was genuinely difficult, I loved them all so so much! Just to be clear this isn’t a ranking of who’s my favorite, but rather who stood out to me this season. I actually ended up putting them in tiers as opposed to ranking them individually because I just couldn’t decide!

🚨Spoilers Ahead🚨

Top Tier: Luther, Diego, Klaus

To be honest, I’ve come to really adore Luther. He’s had the biggest character glow up from season 1 (I properly hated him back then). Now he’s just this hilarious, lovable himbo, and that was clearer than ever this season.

Diego is a similar comedic delight, and his relationships with Lila, and especially, his “son” Stan were lovely to watch.

And lastly, Klaus is always a highlight, but watching him come into his own with his powers was awesome. Also I just love that his family is Amish.

Second Tier: Lila, Five

It goes without saying that I adore these characters as well. Their dynamic was super fun, and they’ll always be up there with my favorites.

Third Tier: Viktor, Allison

I can already tell I’m gonna catch some flack for putting Viktor down here, so let me preface this by saying this is my personal opinion, and of course, that I genuinely really like Viktor! His transition was truly lovely to watch, and he really brought out the best of some of his siblings this season. That being said, that plotline was short lived, and the rest of his role was a little less enjoyable. I’ve found that while he may be a good character, his personality is just so mild that it can be hard to compete with his siblings (and we don’t often get to see the good parts of his personality since he’s so frequently… distraught? And rightly so, but still it’s a little irritating that he just can’t catch a break and ends up crying all the time).

As for Allison, she went full on villain this season. And while a lot of that was understandable and warranted (and could’ve made for great character development), other regions of that plotline were a little less compelling. Namely, when she assaulted Luther, which instantly plummeted her to the bottom of the list for me- that was truly fucked up.

[sardonic-sprite]

Note on negativity

Hey, y'all!

So long-time readers may remember me posting shortly after publishing "Actual Proof that Bruce Wayne is Batman" about negative comments and their harm to writers. Unfortunately after publishing "bane" i feel the need to say it again

Ao3 writers write for FUN and for THEMSELVES. They share from a vulnerable and excited place inside and not because they were obligated.

There are also multiple tagging conventions and different styles of tagging fics. For example, I choose to tag slash relationships only on the fics where they are shown, not every fic in a series that may only occasionally feature the relationship, a decision I've gotten flack for in the past.

This recent fic however (bane) DID follow an established ao3 tagging convention. Folks, please:

"Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings" is a glaring signal that there may be a very harsh story below, and is used by writers to preserve a story's tension.

If you cannot handle the unknown, you don't have to read it! If you start and then get nervous, you don't have to finish! If authors provide an optional spoiler in their notes, that is your ticket to determine if this fic is ok for you.

I do understand, believe me, that there are times when we as readers make a judgement call from the warnings and end up getting triggered. I HAVE BEEN THERE. But please stop and consider before you leave an angry, biting, sarcastic, or hostile comment.

There are a lot of young and insecure writers on that site. A lot who were probably terrified to share that fic with a huge and unknown audience. And all of them wrote for their own enjoyment or exploration. You saying cutting things to their faces is hurtful, and could cause them to stop posting or stop writing altogether. That is NOT fair to them, and its also unfair to the people who genuinely enjoy their work.

So take a minute before you rant at them and slam "send." Take five. Write your rant on a piece of paper if you want. But just click away. Dont leave a comment. Dont leave a kudo. Just click off.

Dont risk destroying a writer's desire to write.

Two years ago, some of the comments I've received could have done this to me. They could have caused me really bad mental health spirals, and if Im completely honest, they affected me a little more than I want to admit, even now. But I'm not speaking because I can't take a few snide remarks. Im speaking because I know others out there CANT, and they shouldn't have to.

There's enough out there to tear people down. Don't join it.

Thank you

- sprite

Please feel encouraged to spread this post, but DO NOT bash the bashers. Most lash out from their own hurt, and snapping back is not the answer.

[whitetrashjj]

Rudy and Maddie hate each other? From reading your blog it seems they do, but why?

Nah girl. Things are just weird. They’s just a lot of history that’s hard to fully explain.

Jsut they used to be best friends. Crazy close. Then people started shipping them, they both got girl friends and there was a very noticeable change. When they came back to film s2 you could see they barley spent time together and it’s just kinda got worse and worse.

Not many photos together. Always standing away from each other in groups. Not posting each other or happy birthdays or liking each others posts. Rudy even removed Maddie’s photo cred from one of his old and super iconic pics not too long ago which was sooo fucking weird.

The way the act tbh stirs up more room ours cause why are you like that if there genuinely no beef or nothing was going on? If you just drifted apart you wouldn’t act like that.

But there are signs that they still get along behind closed doors. There’s even a lil video of them high fiving between takes on the s3 set. So like it’s hella confusing.

I guess we don’t know what is going on. And people give me flack for speculating but from what I’ve observed Maddie’s pretty chill about it all and Rudy acts weird. Big vibes that’s there’s a lot of insecurity in his relationship but like… that’s none of my business I guess.